Nancy Pelosi has met the Pope. According to the Holy See Press Office,"His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in co-operation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development".
Before going to Rome, we have learned, she met with her bishop, Archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco, who had previously invited her to a conversation regarding her lack of understanding of Catholic teaching on abortion. As her spokesman noted regarding the outcome of that meeting, "She is not changing her position on abortion."
http://www.osvdailytake.com/2009/02/archbishop-niederauers-meeting-with.html
So, it is Nancy (Joe, Ted, Chris, Patrick and friends) against Christ and the Church. What can the Church do, or must she surrender to the leadership of the Culture of Death, bent on promoting abortion around the world?
Canon 1311 The Church has an innate and proper right to coerce offending members of the Christian faithful by means of penal sanction.But what coercion could be applied? I can think of two possible ones.
1. Withholding Holy Communion for obstinately persisting in manifest grave sin: the objectively grave evils of tolerating the murder of the innocent, of propagandizing for the right to murder the innocent, for legislatively enabling the murder of the innocent by laws and public moneys, and for the scandal involved in each of the above. (N.B. Scandal is an additional sin in each case, given the public and well publicized nature of the acts of government officials, which then lead others into believing such sins are perfectly alright.)
Canon 915 Those who are excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.2. Excommunication for persisting in heresy, Pope John Paul II having declared on apostolic authority that abortion is a grave evil.
Encyclical Letter The Gospel of Life:
5. The Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals held in Rome on 4-7 April 1991 was devoted to the problem of the threats to human life in our day. After a thorough and detailed discussion of the problem and of the challenges it poses to the entire human family and in particular to the Christian community, the Cardinals unanimously asked me to reaffirm with the authority of the Successor of Peter the value of human life and its inviolability, in the light of present circumstances and attacks threatening it today. In response to this request, at Pentecost in 1991 I wrote a personal letter to each of my Brother Bishops asking them, in the spirit of episcopal collegiality, to offer me their cooperation in drawing up a specific document. I am deeply grateful to all the Bishops who replied and provided me with valuable facts, suggestions and proposals. In so doing they bore witness to their unanimous desire to share in the doctrinal and pastoral mission of the Church with regard to the Gospel of life.
[The Pope then shows the unanimous and unbroken tradition of the Church on abortion. Apparently Nancy Pelosi had never read the Gospel of Life before she decided to expound on Church teaching about abortion. But I digress...]
The authority for excommunication would be,62. ... Given such unanimity in the doctrinal and disciplinary tradition of the Church, Paul VI was able to declare that this tradition is unchanged and unchangeable. Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops—who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine—I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.
Some may argue that the teaching on abortion is 1) not a doctrine but morality, 2) it is not infallibly taught, and finally, 3) it is not a matter of divine and catholic faith revealed by God, and therefore professing the contrary is not subject to a charge of heresy.Canon 750
1. Those things are to be believed by divine and catholic faith which are contained in the word of God as it has been written or handed down by tradition, that is, in the single deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and which are at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn Magisterium of the Church, or by its ordinary and universal Magisterium, which in fact is manifested by the common adherence of Christ's faithful under the guidance of the sacred Magisterium. All are therefore bound to avoid any contrary doctrines.Canon 751 Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.
Canon 1364
1. With due regard for can. 194, part 1, n. 2, an apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic incurs automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication and if a cleric, he can also be punished by the penalties mentioned in can. 1336, part 1, nn. 1, 2, and 3.
2. If long lasting contumacy or the seriousness of scandal warrants it, other penalties can be added including dismissal from the clerical state.
To the first, Catholic moral teaching is indeed doctrine, moral doctrine. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states,
2051 The infallibility of the Magisterium of the Pastors extends to all the elements of doctrine, including moral doctrine, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, expounded, or observed.
As to the second, the teaching on abortion is infallibly taught, on two grounds. The first is the infallible exercise of the ordinary Magisterium. By this is meant that any teaching that has been taught "semper et ubique" (always and everywhere), by Fathers and Doctors of the Church, by the Popes and Councils, even if not solemnly defined as infallible, is infallibility taught. To this is added the second reason, the formal exercise of the Petrine charism by Pope John Paul II in defining abortion as a grave violation of the moral law.
Finally, as to the third, this could be a matter of some debate. However, the person who would settle the debate is already on record on the matter. In its commentary on Pope John Paul II's
11 ... the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being. [John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
, 57]
So, to the extent that Catholic politicians hold and teach that abortion is not a grave evil they would be guilty of heresy and excommunicable on those grounds. This may already have occurred automatically because of the interior disposition of individuals, even if their erroneous belief is known only to themselves and God. However, it can be recognized in the external forum for their public acts by being publicly declared by their bishop or the Pope.
To the extent that they act contrary to the teaching without formally denying it (which has been their usual practice), they would be in manifest grave sin and Communion should be withheld from them. They also could not receive, without repentance of their actions, sacramental absolution (which by its very nature requires repentance for validity), anointing of the sick (canon 1007) or a Catholic funeral (canon 1184).
They would also be no different than the German politicians who did not oppose the immoral laws of the Nazis, but facilitated them in the name of political expediency or self-preservation. Though, in the Germans' favor one can ask, when was the last time an American politician was shot or imprisoned for following his or her conscience?
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